


Changing Tide

by Starbuck09256



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Date Night, F/M, Fluff, MSR, season 7, x-files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:20:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22946947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbuck09256/pseuds/Starbuck09256
Summary: Date night after Brand X. Their relationship has progressed are the ready for next steps.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 5
Kudos: 79
Collections: X-Files Fluff Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	Changing Tide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RationalCashew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RationalCashew/gifts).



Brand X Post Ep

A soft light of the monitors captures her eye as she walks into Mulders hospital room. The learva in those tobacco beetles almost took him from her forever. Her partner, best friend and now lover. God the way he was coughing, she felt each cough as if she herself was gasping for breath. She takes a seat near his bed, his soft brown hair turns slightly as he shifts towards her. 

“Hi” he breathes and she is so very very thankful to hear his voice with as raspy as it might be. 

“Hey,” she can barely control the tremor in her voice. 

When mere hours ago she felt sure this would be their tragic end. He reaches for her, desperate to hold her hand and caress her fingers in his. She can’t deny him, hasn’t been able to deny him anything in so very long. She thinks back to a few short days ago when Skinner called her home to have her and Mulder come to North Carolina, unknowing that Mulders arm was slung around her bare stomach, his lips traveling down the curve of her back. She thinks about the way he laughed at their matching blue outfits. He stares at her as his lips find each knuckle.

“Come here, honey.” his whisper sounds like him. 

After 2 days of barely talking finally he sounds for a scrap of a second like himself. She still can’t deny him as he scoots over and gestures for her to come to him. The bed sags ever so slightly with her weight. She can barely adjust before he pulls her firmly against him. His nose nuzzling her hair. 

“How can I already be missing this so much. It’s only been a few days.” 

She can’t help but smile against the cool sheets. His hand has already snaked under her shirt resting on her taunte stomach. She remembers the way he trailed kisses there when they tried for a baby. She wishes she could give him that, wishes she could give them both the family they desire so desperately. 

“When we get back, I want to go on a date. Fancy restaurant, the works, Scully. Maybe we could even go away for the weekend.” 

She can’t help but chuckle. 

“We go away on the weekends all the time,” she can’t help mutter as he finds the spot under her ear that makes her whimper. 

“Not work Scully, you and I have tried vacations apart and all we do is miss each other and you always seem to find a crazy cool x-file.” 

She turns to face him. Stroke his stubble cheek “That sounds amazing.” 

Her eyes are bright and so are his. His raspy lips brush hers, god even like this it’s still tingles, still makes her stomach drop in excitement. This man who has gone through heaven and hell for her, who challenges her mind, and loves her soul. She thinks back to the years she tried to deny herself his love. How impossible it was, how the proof and evidence of everything they were to each other was written so very long ago. 

A week later after they have spent most nights just making love over and over, he almost begs to take her on a real date. He’s made reservations at a beautiful restaurant along the potomac. One of those places that is covered in white linens, with an enchanting view of the water, he knows how much it calls her. She’s been there once, when her cancer went into remission he took her here. She joked that she must have died when he surprised her at her door. They both knew that she was here because of him, that the two of them will always save the other. He gives her a heads up this time, tells her about that dress he knows is in the back of her closet. A gift from Melissa when Scully came back, Missy always knew where they would end up together. Her sister's voice still in her mind. “Jesus dana, that man is in love with you, and you need to wear this dress for him when you finally figure it out for yourself.” How right Missy was. Mulders love and devotion is as overwhelming as she feared and yet, it's better than she could have ever imagined. 

He goes home to shower. When he knocks on her door with a dozen roses wearing his best suit, part of her thinks she might cry. His hands slide down her sides as he admires her dress. It hits all the right places and he can’t help the cheshire cat grin that spreads across his face. On the drive in the light rain he holds her hand. HIs fingers play with hers as they drive the familiar streets. They have lived through nightmares together, had tragedy take away so much for both of them. 

The restaurant is just as stunning as she remembered, almost too nice for a first date. They laugh, he pulls back her chair for her, even though he’s done it hundreds of times this feels different and the same all at once. They share an appetizer, and she thinks about the time he wiped bbq sauce off her chin. Hundreds of meals together, stealing fries, he loves pickles and she hates olives, she thinks back to the buckets of chicken, the greasy pizza. The times he brought her chicken soup when she went through chemo. The times she ordered chinese and argued with him over acceptable expenditures. She scans the menu but he just scans her face, watching as she bits her lip and smiles when she finds the fresh salmon on the menu. He can’t help but chuckle at her predictability, and yet just when he thinks he has her figured out she orders the lobster. She always keeps him guessing in the best ways. Her order might change but her heart and her loyalty are tried and true. The way she stretches against his skin in the morning, the way she laughs when he grabs her just so. He is still memorizing her whimpers and gasps when they make love, he isn’t sure he wants to memorize them anymore. He loves her mind, her body but mostly her soul. As they share a chocolate souffle he watches her lips pull across the spoon. Those lips that have argued and shot him down, have been frozen against him in antarctica. That have kissed his forehead, sipped impossibly hot coffee, and made him feel things he didn’t think were possible. This date is both new and not. It might be the most romantic but in a way it isn’t. Their romantic moments aren’t ordinary. They aren’t just confessions of love, they are moments of dependability. When she went to Alaska and Africa for him, he went to Antarctica for her. There really isn’t anything they wouldn’t do for one another. He wants to move in together, but it’s only been a few months. He knows that she can be a little skittish and likes her space so he has been buying his time in asking. He doesn’t tell her about the houses he looked for when they went through the inverto. He doesn’t show her the pictures of the farm house in Falls Church. How it would have been perfect for a tire swing and a garden in the back. He doesn’t talk about the fact that he bought a ring. His Scully is perfect and everything they have is perfect, he doesn’t know for how much longer it will be like this. How much time they have already borrowed from the devil, even if he secretly thinks she might be immortal. He sees why his other relationships failed. Why every single time he thought he found the one it was just a placeholder for her. He still gets a flutter when he touches her back. Still smiles when he hears her voice or heels down the hall. He realizes how silly it was to ask her out on a real date, especially under the guise of it being a first. Not even the hundredth first date. No the two of them have been courting through the ages, in past and future lives using intellect and mystery to seduce one another. Through a series of extraordinary events they have found the loyalty and love they sought and not in the stars that twinkle above them as they walk beside the river after dinner. But in a small laugh, a warm smile, in a tearfilled hug. They fell in love during stakeouts and bad french fries. Hours in the car listening to pop songs watching the world pass at 60 miles an hour. They saw each other's soul in empathy that they showed others, in the way they didn’t miss a detail, didn’t discount the others theory. They found love the right way, on the path of respect while they searched for the truth as partners. He couldn’t imagine a better love story, although he could imagine a happier one yes. But a better one? No. As they stand at the edge of the dock, watching boats lights twinkle across the water. This is so nice, holding hands simply watching the world go by and not thinking about the shadows in the darkness. Next weekend he will take her out to Falls Church, have her look over the adoption papers his lawyer printed up. Show her that ring, that seemed possibly too simple and yet utterly stunning. He figures now is their time, and he is over spending it chasing monsters. He’d rather get out of the car, chase butterflies and fireflies with his kids, regardless of if they are biologically his. 

He’s been drifting off thinking about it that he misses her softly turning to him drawing him out of the deep trance his mind has taken him. 

“Mulder? Did you hear me?” 

He looks at her, the light reflecting on her auburn locks. 

“What did you say?” he asks and this time he does what they do best, focuses right on her. 

Right on everything she has to say, because she is the one person who doesn’t waste her words. She smiles that she isn’t mad, especially if she knew what he was imagining. 

“I saw a file labeled Falls Church? Did you want to check that out tomorrow?” he can’t help but grin. 

Intrigue is her weakness, curiosity and information, something she will seek. 

“It’s not super pressing, but I wouldn’t mind sleeping in a bit before driving out there. There is a house I think we should check out.” 

Her face turns up in anticipation. 

“Haunted?” she asks. 

Her eyes twinkle but concerned is etched into the fine wrinkles on the side of her mouth. He can’t wait to kiss them away tomorrow. 

“I think it definitely warrants investigation.” He plays it coy, because that's how he got her. 

She doesn’t want the answers given to her, she wants to find them with him. He can’t imagine a better way to go through life. She grins leans up on her toes, that despite her heels force him to still lean down. He realized early in this new dynamic of theirs that she loves being kissed. A lot. He is happy to oblige her. She strokes his face letting her hand press into his chest slightly. 

“You know Mulder, we've been spending a good amount of time at my place… I know we’ve only been doing this for a short time, but umm...maybe you should I don’t know move some stuff in, not like move in move in...unless… ?” her voice hesitates. 

“Scully if the in vitro had worked, would we be living together now?” he asks. 

Because in truth she might have said that he could be involved in any way he wanted. But she knew as he did, that he was all in, just like her. All in for them and whatever the future held for them. Like all things when they finally are on the same page it’s the same paragraph, sentence, word.

“You know, I umm was kind of thinking maybe we could... I don’t know, get a place somewhere new? Fresh start?”

He looks at his shoes and he wants to tell her. She grins, that grin that he has longed for, this is right. Them. 

“Yea, I umm think we could both use change.” 

He smiles, his eyes drift past the water out to the stars, out towards their future together. 

“As long as we are together.” She states her eyes following his into the sky. 

“Always.”


End file.
